


loving you was red

by skyesward



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-03 23:36:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2892269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyesward/pseuds/skyesward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last thought you have before it all goes to hell is I’m sorry because you know that tiny red marks only bring about heartbreak and disappointment, and you never want Laura to have to feel that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	loving you was red

**Author's Note:**

> the au where a red line appears on your wrist every time you fall in love. very much carmilla-centric.  
> (also the title is vvv obviously from the taylor swift song this fic has no relation to.)

You tend to rub your wrist, sometimes absentmindedly, sometimes with a taste of bitterness and others with memories you want to forget fresh in your mind and the wound open in your heart. You rub, and you rub, until it feels like the skin that can’t be injured has become raw, but the line is still there, as vibrant as it was on the sunny afternoon you spent with her on a horse carriage and it’s as bold as it was the rainy December night you waited for someone who would never come. You live your life on a prayer that the line will fade, that with its’ absence the hole in your heart will fill itself up again, that if you don’t see the stupid red line every time you awake it will somehow mean that you have lost the memory, forgotten the pain of heartbreak.

The revolving door of girls that you meet at parties and sleep with for strictly one night only look at it with a twinkle in their eye and curious words on their lips, and they gaze in wonderment and they ask and they say _wow you’re so lucky_ , and you want to say _I’m really not_ but you take to smirking and kissing down their torsos and the subject is thereby dropped for the rest of the encounter. It becomes a game to you, to see who can make you forget for the longest, to see what can take your mind off of it for long enough, to see who you can make fall the hardest. (but nothing is ever enough.)

And then you meet Laura Hollis, innocent in every sense of the word but one, and she’s far too inquisitive for her own good and incredibly stubborn with a heart too big for this world. She’s pure of heart from what you gather, and it’s only accentuated by her bare wrist and Cheshire grin that you try oh so hard to ignore. She has too many questions, and of course when her eyes land on the wrist you try to shield from vision with leather bracelets her eyes light up at the sight and she opens her mouth to ask questions but before you can stop her from writing a romance novel out of your past, she cups her mouth with one hand and lets out and apology so you grunt in response, but you realise it’s the first time you've ever smiled after being asked that question.

The topic is never brought up again, and you’re pretty sure it’s because even she knows of the fine line between asking meddlesome questions and discussing things that garner you a response of a scowl and a huff. At least until her and her interloping posse decide that it is in their rights to barge into your life unannounced and tie you up like a prisoner in your own fucking bedroom whilst starving you of the only sustenance you require for some questions about a world they have no business poking around in. When you finally succumb to the hunger that usually lays dormant you tell her everything in a show of good faith and because you could care less if they got themselves killed in a fruitless attempt to be valiant heroes of some sort. (At least that’s what you tell yourself)

You tell her everything, and when she tries to lighten the mood with some inane way to make your life story more interesting you find that there’s a fond smile etched on your face and when you do you wipe it off like it’s a stain on a previously perfect record and you soldier on with words that carve holes into your soul. When the story reaches its climax about the part where you meet the beautiful girl who’s far too kind atop her transcendent beauty you can feel your voice crack as it becomes laced with the emotion you've deprived yourself of for so long. You say her name like it’s a curse but like it’s a blessing to have experienced it and your voice softens as your wrist hurts almost as much as the subtle cracking in your heart does. You brave through the story with a tinge of your signature snark as you attempt to block out the line on your wrist that seems to burn even more as you carry on speaking. Laura’s face contorts into one of sympathy and sadness and the sock puppet she’s gripping onto falls to the floor with a barely noticeable thud and you brush past the subject so quickly it’s like you've never even uttered the words.

When you align yourself with their foolish goals and lend a hand in their mission to save the world you insist it’s to screw with your mother and not in response to the smile that seems to envelope your roommates’ features with hope as you agree. Then all the days you barely interact at all save a nod of recognition in the school campus or short bursts of necessary conversation turn themselves into late nights and early mornings placing yourself in life threatening situations with a group of people you barely know, let alone would risk your, admittedly eternal, life for and you find that you’re _falling falling falling_ down a path you promised yourself you’d never walk again.

She’s attractive, you've always known that, but not enough to make you risk everything you've built, everything you've recovered from the ashes of the flames Ell left behind, and certainly not enough for you to place yourself in line for your mothers’ wrath, but you do it anyway. It’s foolish to think that bumbling down the same road, to think doing the same things again will garner different results than before; it’s insanity and Albert Einstein knew it all those centuries ago and you know it now but it doesn't stop your heart from healing itself to make space for another brown eyed girl with too much to lose.  

When things go so very wrong and one of the ginger twins stares at you with the hugest amount of malice she can gather you shrug and you say _I told you I’m not the hero of this piece_ and that’s the end of it but she takes to blaming Laura in a bout of unreasonable anger that came with losing her best friend and that’s when it becomes personal because the downtrodden look Laura bears is enough to melt the ice around your heart and you try so hard to elicit a smile with badly expressed comfort. That night with her in your arms you are too aware that you shouldn't but you do it anyway, because to you, it’s all worth it if Laura Hollis is happy.  

It’s like someone strikes a stake in your heart when you’re sitting and reading a book written in a dead language only you can decipher and a tingling in your wrist makes your heart drop with the memory of the only other time this has happened and you shut your eyes as you will it away but when you open them, slowly, as if that would chase it away, in the dark of the night with Laura snoring two feet away you can see the outline of the mark in the barely there moonlight and although part of your heart sings the rest of it is grim in anticipation of what is to come.

The marks are identical and that’s how you know the outcomes probably will be as well and so you make a decision for it never to come to light. You cover it up right away with foundation you only keep for show as if it were a blemish meant to be rid of and when Laura shakes you awake the next morning, jumping in excitement at a new discovery it’s like nothing has changed but your eyes still linger for more than a moment at her pale wrist and every time you see yours’ in sight, especially when you’re washing your hands and it’s right in your line of vision, you feel dirty, like you’re cheating the world of something, like the space between you and your reflection holds the words you should say to the bubbly girl sitting not far from you. (But you don’t, because you know the words are too heavy and the sentiments will far outlast her presence.)

It forms itself into a game of cat and mouse where you try and catch any semblance of emotion for you in her actions, and you balance it by putting a little more of yourself out there every time you speak, and it soon becomes a full-fledged carousel ride you’re not sure you want to ever get off of. She cares for you in a way you’re unsure how to reciprocate, because you know if you give yourself the chance to, whatever feelings bubbling in your heart will surface and harden and became a permanent mark not unlike the one gracing your hand. When all that is comes to a moment that you think you will remember for the rest of your life and you stand up, and for the first time you carry with you all the feelings you've gone to great lengths to keep buried and it’s like you hold your heart in your hand and you almost hand it to her to squeeze the life out of but then her gaze shifts to one you know too well so you recompose yourself and you shift your voice and you speak.

You barter her friends’ life for hers’ and there forms a weight in your chest you carry with you even when she wakes, even when she smiles and thanks you for catching her. When she giggles and places a kiss on your cheek, before you get a chance to reconsider if it’s out of gratitude or something more there’s a dull ache in your chest and a slight burn on your wrist that serves as reminders of what you've done to her.

Her face drops when you confirm what you've done, and you accept your punishment like the good girl you should have been and you leave. You drink too much but you don’t get drunk (you never do, not anymore) and it doesn't stop you from downing cup after cup of bitter booze that probably cost closer to ten dollars than fifty in a way that would make your matron from another lifetime shake her head in adamant disapproval.

Not long after you return to an empty bedroom that’s cluttered with a mess that indicates incessant ruffling to find what you think are weapons and you sigh as your heart races because you know that although there’s a huge chance of you not returning making sure she does is more than worth it. You do the most absurd thing right after falling for her and you live and for a moment you think everything could actually go right for once but it doesn't and before you’re consumed by an unspeakable evil you see Laura reach out to you but more than that you see the red line marking her wrist so you smile and you make a stupid comment ( _you know, i’m really starting to hate all this heroic vampire crap_ ) and you jump. You jump and you think that you’re following the light but when you fall it only gets darker and darker and you find it’s because you've left your light behind.  The last thought you have before it all goes to hell is _I’m sorry_ because you know that tiny red marks only bring about heartbreak and disappointment, and you never want Laura to have to feel that way.

When you finally manage to open your eyes it’s more than a surprise when you have to blink to adjust to the blinding light of daytime and the even more dazzling grin that greets you etched on the face hovering above you. So when she jumps at you to hug you so tightly it’s like she’s taking the breaths you don’t require with her and you manage a grimace but all you want to do is beam and press your lips to hers so that’s exactly what you do.  (there’s nothing more to lose now, you think.)

You kiss, and it’s intoxicating because it feels like she’s the only other person in the universe and you go back and forth in a fight for dominance and a show of emotion. You pull apart ever so often for her to take a breath of fresh air but when your lips find their way back to one another you find that hers’ taste like the peach lip gloss she carries around with her and she smells far too much like the lavender body wash you keep in the bathroom and you figure that you could never be happier. The laugh that you emit when she speaks is the first one you've meant in a while and when the both of you settle down to just bask in the others’ company she refuses to share the bed with you (because _carm, i might hurt you.)_ and although you set out to protest the look she gives you tells you there’s no way you’ll win and so you give in.

You’re seated as close to each other as possible and she cradles your hand in hers’, and you know she’s noticed the red mark that lays there when she rubs it lightly in a show of affection and for the first time you understand why people think so highly of the permanent reminder of love.

When her friend enters the room with another multitude of bad news you know you should worry and the look you give her should be anything but exasperated but with Laura Hollis by your side it just feels like you’re that much closer to invincible.


End file.
